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“Shopping and whoring yourself out isn’t a life, Natascha. Even if it was, you can do all that in Paris.”
She tosses the ticket at my feet. “Go to hell.”
“I could always have you shipped off to Russia instead.”
Her eyes flicker to the ticket she’s just discarded. “My father?—”
I roll my eyes. “Your father doesn’t give a shit where you are or what you do as long as he benefits from our marriage. Or did you think he actually cared about you?”
Natascha bites her lower lip, the wheels in her head spinning so fast I expect to see smoke. “Is this abouther?”
“Yes. It’s in my daughter’s best interests to put as much distance between the two of you as?—”
“I’m not talking about the brat. I’m talking abouther—the woman.”
Laila.Her name is almost out of my mouth before I stop myself. I’m not about to send Natascha off to France with Laila’s name on her tongue.
She’s not fit to utter it.
“She is not your concern.”
Natascha flinches at the ice in my tone. “Are you still fucking her? I hear the rumors floating around, but I thought?—”
“What rumors?”
My chest tightens.
If even Natascha has heard the rumors… who else has?
Natascha waves away the question and bends to snatch the ticket off the floor. “It doesn’t matter. I’d much rather live in Paris than share the same air space as you and your little skank, anyway.” She turns towards the door, but stops, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. “What about my allowance?”
God, she’s shameless. If she wasn’t being uncharacteristically cooperative, I’d have a lot to say to her. As it is, I bite my tongue.
“Your allowance will stay the same. Unless you keep talking,” I add. “Then I won’t be so generous.”
“Fine.” She lifts her chin. “Walk me out, Arsen? One last time?”
She’s worried about appearances until the bitter end, it seems. But walking her down to the car is easy enough to stomach when I know it’s the last time. I open my office door and usher her into the hallway.
Together, Natascha and I make our way to the elevators.
Somewhere between floors thirty and one, she starts peppering me with the important questions:How big is the Paris apartment? Will she still have a private chef? Can she set up lines of credit under the Adamov name?
“I want a two-bedroom penthouse,” she tells me as we reach the car, “with high ceilings and a view of the Champs-Élysées.”
I hold the door open for her. “I’ve arranged for?—”
But my voice is drowned out by the screech of a gunshot. So loud and so close that my ears ring. I duck down, shielding myself behind the car as screams ring out and people scatter.
There’s another round of gunshots. But when I turn to pull Natascha behind the car with me, I find her clutching at her gold chains…
That are now a slick, blood red.
Her eyes are wide, her skin pale. For once, she doesn’t look pissed or annoyed.
She looks terrified.
Her body sways and suddenly, she’s on the ground. My team closes around us, allowing me to belly crawl towards Natascha. She tries to speak, but she’s choking on blood, gurgling sounds coming from where the bullet buried itself in her neck.
